Friday RoundUp: Facebook Home in foreclosure and the NSA has a Tumblr

Let’s end the week with a look at a few bibs and bobs from around the web.

Facebook:

The New York Times says Facebook has disbanded the team working on Facebook Home. This was the app designed to turn everyone’s phone into all Facebook, all the time. It flopped and now it looks like foreclosure time for Home.

Not ready to give up, TechCrunch says Facebook is turning their attention away from Home and over to Work. FB@Work is a rumored enterprise communications platform. Seriously? Can you imagine explaining to your board of directors that you want your employees on Facebook while they’re at work. . . ?

If you’re a UK Facebook user, you can now label yourself with one of more than 70 new gender profiles. 70. I can only think of, maybe, 10 off the top of my head and that’s pushing it. Here in the US, we were given 50 new options earlier this year. Does that mean the UK has more genders than we do? I want to see a full list.

Tumblr:

The Verge says, “The National Security Agency has posted its first full transparency report. Posted on the official agency Tumblr.”

The NSA has a Tumblr account? What do they normally post, spy memes? Screengrabs from 24 with funny captions?

Ecommerce

Shopping app Wish just raised 50 million in new funding. Merchants load product options. Users create wish lists (or buy), the software learns what you like and makes future recommendations. On the surface, it looks like a dozen other catalog aggregators but reading the details it sounds more like eBay. You can list what you want and you’re responsible for shipping when someone buys. Wish gets a fee – I’ve heard 15% but couldn’t confirm it.

For one thing, they found that users who login using the most popular social login tool – Facebook – stay on the page longer than those who don’t.

They also point out that 75% of online purchases don’t happen because guests are required to create a login before they can shop. 2 out of 5 consumers said they’d rather use a social login than create a guest account. I know I would. So if you’re still wondering if you should add a Facebook login option to your ecommerce store, stop wondering and do it.

And while we’re talking about shopping cart abandonment; Spencers lost me as a customer last night. After spending a half hour adding items to my cart, I couldn’t get the cart to actually load. I tried several times. Gave up and probably won’t go back. That’s money they could have had in their pocket if they’d made it easier for me to buy.

That’s it for me. Have a great weekend. We’ll see you back here Monday – which is incredibly – the last day of June.

PacificSage

One should never be surprised at the stupid things corporations (Yep, FB is now a bonafide corp.) will do to make success more successful.